WD Black ²: SSD 120GB and 1TB HDD

Western Digital has launched a storage device of a new genre: Black ². It actually combines a traditional hard drive with a 1 TB SSD 120GB, all in a S-ATA 2.5-inch case. It costs about 300 dollars.

Western Digital is decidedly active lately. At the beginning of September, the manufacturer unveiled three new drives RED designed for NAS, including two 2.5-inch. Always in this format, the manufacturer is interested this time to compact machines like laptops and all-in-one computers.

 

 WD Black ²

Thus, it has launched the Black ², a storage device 2.5-inch (9.5 mm) two-in-one that includes both a 120GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, the all with a single connector and s-ATA 6Gb / s. By default, only the first part will be accessed and used, which allows for example to easily install or clone an operating system. Then it will download and add the WD Black ² software to activate the second part of the device and take advantage of one additional TB. Note that it is currently only available for Windows XP 8.1.

Side flow rates, it is about 350MB / s read (for the SSD part), but we do not know more, datasheet remaining relatively discreet about it. It will be interesting to compare the performance of hybrid solutions like Seagate SHDD.  

Anyway, it seems relatively expensive compared to two separate solutions: a 120GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive are easily less than $ 80 piece, less than $ 160  for two. Black ² therefore cost almost twice as much. However, it has the advantage of offering a true SSD storage and a 1TB more for those who have only one location 2.5 inches and not wishing to $ 460 in SSD crucial M500 960 GB.

Black ² may therefore have great difficulty in positioning, especially at this price. Indeed, even in very compact mini-PC as the Zotac Zbox ID 89, there are more and more often a mSATA slot for an SSD and a location 2.5 inches to install a hard drive.

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